


i won't be made a victim, not again

by bosbie



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Amnesia, Army AU, M/M, PTSD, mentions larry stylinson but only in one sentence, they're american because i have no idea how uk military works, zayn's pretty messed up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:02:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4949443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bosbie/pseuds/bosbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>he remembers liam saying his favorite color is green. he was wrong, he decides, because of this: liam’s eyes and hair and entire </i>being<i> is brown, and he would much rather drown himself in that color instead of the other.</i></p><p> </p><p>zayn is brought back after being missing in action for three months, except he isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i won't be made a victim, not again

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Reign of Kindo song “Psalm.”
> 
> Warnings for reference to violence and torture, dehumanization, and loss of self.

they find him strapped to an operating table with hazy eyes and his right forearm spread out meticulously at the other side of the room. he’s been missing for months, they tell him; they found him during a raid of an abandoned facility anonymously tipped to be the headquarters of a rogue organization bent on overthrowing the american government. he was alone, and they assumed he was left there because taking the time to move his body without killing him was too much. after he’s transported on base they interrogate him for hours for what he knows or remembers. he doesn’t remember anything from the past three months. he doesn’t remember anything, really.

“you’re a soldier in the us army,” a man says. he’s all sharp lines and broad shoulders, his graying hair shining under the metallic light just as brightly as the medals pinned to his uniform. “you’ve been assumed killed in action for nearly a hundred days. can you tell me who you are?”

he opens his mouth but his throat is dry and full of dust. no, he croaks. his arm is gone.

“your name is zayn malik,” his doctor tells him after he’s awoken from his drug-induced coma. her smile is kind and her brightly patterned hijab is the only splash of color in this whole damn country. “you’re twenty five years old and have a severe case of amnesia. whatever they did to you when you were captured erased most if not all of your memories. we can’t say for sure how long this will last, but we’ll do everything we can to help you.”

he stares at the stump of flesh where his elbow would be. he can’t make a fist anymore. his arm is gone.

[his arm is gone.]

\-----

they let him leave a month later. he isn’t any use to them, they realize, so they send him home with an honorable discharge and a disability pay. they find him a small apartment he can afford with the measly funds he’s given in exchange for his arm and memories. he refuses their offer of a prosthetic. he wants flesh, not plastic. in place of that, they give him a medicine-cabinet full of pills. it’s to help you with your phantom pains and depression, they say.

his name is zayn malik, they say, and he is a hero.

he isn’t sure whether to believe them or the soft whisper at the back of his mind saying otherwise.

\-----

someone knocks on his door. it’s been five days since he’s started living here. sometimes he reaches for something with the wrong hand. sometimes he swears he feels a dull ache in an arm that is no longer there. sometimes he wakes up and he’s on that table again, the overhanging operating light so bright and hot it melts his face off.

the man he opens the door to has dark hair and dark eyes. he takes one look at him and starts to cry. he pulls him into a hug and gets tears all over his shirt. the man is unfamiliar to him. he asks him who he is. “i’m liam,” he says. “you’re zayn. we’ve known eachother for ages.” he doesn’t recognize him. “they told me that would be the case.” liam is still crying but he refutes his attempts at an apology. “shut up, i’m just happy you’re here.”

liam tells him how the hospital informed his mom about his whereabouts a week before. she’s hysterical. his baba and sisters, too. they want to see him. “we thought.” liam’s breath catches. “we thought you were _dead_ , zayn.” he starts crying again. “god, i thought you were dead. why the hell would you do that to me?” he says sorry, but liam says, “no, shut up. don’t say sorry. _i’m_ sorry for being an emotional wreck.”

he doesn’t want to leave his apartment. he isn’t sure how he would take being outside. liam says that it’s fine, and everyone would come here instead.

liam stays the night, sleeping on the couch. he doesn’t ask if it was alright for him to stay, but he doesn’t feel like liam needs to.

\-----

strangers who say they are his friends and loved ones show up the next day spend the afternoon sobbing and looking at him like he isn’t real. a woman clutches at him and won’t let go for a long while. they tell him she is his mother. he doesn’t remember a thing. they tell him it’s fine, that they expected it, but he can feel their disappointment.

liam is a constant shadow by his side. it’s comforting, almost. almost, because he still can’t remember what his life was like before bright hospital lights and painpainpain and _sedate him, i can’t get a good cut with him squirming and making a racket like that._

\-----

he wakes up at three am screaming. for what, he doesn’t know. he doesn’t remember what he’s screaming for, but he remembers the ache and the blade and  _could you please make him shut the fuck up?_ liam is still there. his family had to leave, so liam promised he’d stay the night again. he bursts into his room and tries to comfort him, but is given a punch in the face instead.

he finds himself puking into the toilet, liam rubbing calming circles onto his back. liam doesn’t bring up the ugly scars going down his shoulder blades and spine. maybe they were there before, when liam knew him.

he asks liam about the black eye he is sporting an hour later. “you gave this to me. earlier.” oh. sorry. “no, it’s fine, you weren’t yourself. does that, um, happen often?” yes. “oh. okay.”

the morning after liam leaves. he comes back a couple of hours later with a large luggage bag and a promise to keep an eye on him.

his right forearm burns, despite it not being there.

\-----

“hey, do you want anything from the grocery store?” no. “you sure? i can get you, like, an apple or something.” an apple. “yeah, you used to-- you like apples. especially the green ones. green is your favorite color, you know.” i don’t. “oh. um. sorry. i’ll be right back.”

liam gets him an apple. he bites into it. it’s sour and sweet, and he likes it. he thanks him. liam smiles, pleased.

\-----

__

_you can’t breathe. the smoke is too thick for that. if you squint you can see the silhouette of the humvee you were in, before it ran over that ied. it’s nothing but scrap metal now, covered with dirt and the guts of the people who were in it when it exploded. no one is around you except for the bodies of soldiers you were talking and laughing with an hour before. there’s johnny, who was excited to see his newborn baby girl when this tour was over._

_you trip over johnny’s leg. you decide to stay there, because the smoke is thick and you can’t breathe and it feels nice, to lay down here, in the dirt, instead of running to a safe place that doesn’t exist._

__

\-----

“hey.” he blinks and looks up. “you blanked out again.” sorry. “you apologize a lot. not nearly as much as you did before.” he purses his lips. tell me. “tell you what?” what i was like before.

“okay.” liam says that a lot, okay. it’s like he can’t say anything else. he sits beside him on the ratty old couch that came with the apartment. it’s starting to feel more like a home now, something he didn’t think he would have again. “well.” liam laughs. “you were. fuck, you were such a _prick_.”

oh. “wait, i don’t mean it like that! actually, i kind of do. because wow, zayn, you were an _asshole_. you had such a cold exterior and never let anyone in unless they were willing to take an icepick and chip away at the walls you shielded yourself with. you always wore leather jackets even in the summertime and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. you would always bitch about your commanding officers whenever you got home, i couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t just quit. in fact, i didn’t understand why you joined the military in the first place. you’re such a walking box of contradictions, zayn. when we were younger you were outspoken about your stance against the government’s unfair treatment of immigrants and civilians in the middle east, but the day you turned eighteen you enlisted. who would do that? you, apparently.”

and just like that, liam’s face softens and his voice becomes fond. “but you. you pretended to be this mysterious bad boy, but you have such a soft spot for your family and friends, so protective over them. you loved children and you cried every time you watched kabhi khushi kabhie gham. you claimed to hate hearing about people’s relationship problems, but you were always there when harry or louis needed someone to vent to about their stupid couple’s spats. you said you didn’t see the point of pursuing secondary education but supported my decision to go to university when no one else did. you.” liam shakes his head. “god, you’re such a walking box of contradictions.”

he has to look away. liam talks as if he is talking about someone he loves. his eyes are so warm he is afraid it might burn the apartment down. liam talks as if he is talking about someone he loves, and he isn’t sure how to tell liam that that person doesn’t exist anymore, that he disappeared the moment he was strapped down on that operating table and felt smooth metal slicing around his elbow.

\-----

a month after he starts living with him, liam comes home with a small bag of oranges, and he remembers. it goes like this:

he is ten, and he’s playing hide-and-seek. he doesn’t know who he is playing with, but he figures that if he doesn’t remember them they aren’t important. so he’s playing hide-and-seek, and he finds the perfect hiding place in the form of a pile of empty crates inside a warehouse. he isn’t supposed to be here, he knows, but he also knows that the warehouse has been abandoned for years and he _has_ to win this game. he crouches down and makes himself as small as possible and waits. but then an angry man comes in, followed by a scared woman holding a bag of oranges. he watches as the angry man screams and yells at the scared woman until she is crying for him to stop. and then he hits her, and she drops the oranges. they roll all over the floor, one of them even hitting the toe of his foot from where he is hiding. the angry man hits her some more until he is satisfied, and he grabs the scared woman to drag her back to the marketplace outside.

he stays behind the crates until his knees begin to hurt from being bent for so long. he runs home, forgetting about the game entirely.

he hasn’t told anyone about it, he thinks.

\-----

something tells him that he should tell liam: _i finally remember something. a man had beaten his wife and i watched._ but liam’s face is still a stranger’s face and his face is still a stranger’s face, so he doesn’t.

instead, he eats an orange. it’s sweet and it leaves his hands smelling like citrus.

\-----

“have you ever thought about seeking some help?” liam asks one day. he’s just gotten back from his job at the mcdonald’s down the street. a temporary one, he says, until he finds something that puts his mechanical engineering degree to use. he doesn’t have a job. nobody would want to hire someone like him.

(he had asked liam, before, what he had to let go in order to move in with him. liam’d shrugged and said, “not a lot, if you think about it. i had a job at an airplane manufacturing place and i lived with niall. you remember niall, yeah? you don’t? him and his girlfriend wanted to start living together, so he was cool with me moving out. and my job paid pretty well but i didn’t really like it, so. me moving in with you isn’t a burden on my part, zayn, don’t worry about it.”)

help with what? “for, you know.” i don’t. “sorry. i need to stop saying that. help with your...problems.” problems? “shit, i’m so bad at this. i didn’t mean that.” okay. “i just. i can’t stand seeing you like this, zayn.” like what. “you’re.” liam scratches his head in frustration. “you’re not _here!_ like, your body is here, and you talk to me, and sometimes you even smile at me and you don’t always look so _dull_ , but. your head. it’s like you’re in your own little world, and i just want you to come back to me. or maybe i want to be with you, wherever you are, i don’t know. i just miss you. you came back, but it’s almost like you didn’t.”

_you came back, but it’s almost like you didn’t._

okay. “okay?” yeah, i mean. i will. “oh.” liam sighs a heavy breath and raises his arm to maybe wrap around his shoulders, but he stops. maybe liam realized that he no longer likes to be touched, that he flinches whenever anybody lays a finger on him. “oh, okay. thanks.”

_you came back, but it’s almost like you didn’t._

_you came back, but it’s almost like you didn’t._

\-----

 

he comes home with blood-shot eyes and a pale face. liam had wanted to come with him to the va office, but stayed behind at his request. he had to do this alone, he said.

“how was it?” liam asks, patiently waiting by the kitchen counter. he gives him a glass of ice-cold water. nice. he finishes the glass in one gulp. the therapist. she was nice. “that’s good. do you want to go again?” yeah. “okay.”

and it was good. she hadn’t forcefully extracted anything from him; she waited until he wanted to speak. when he started, he couldn’t stop. he didn’t want to. the session ended with him feeling lighter.

i. liam looks at him, eyebrows raised in anticipation. i want to get fixed.

liam’s brow furrows. “you’re not broken, though.”

oh. okay.

\-----

“your feet smell fucking disgusting.” liam wrinkles his nose in distaste and pushes his feet off of the coffee table.

he scoffs. i’m a disabled veteran. i was a prisoner of war for three months. i think i have a right to have smelly feet.

“really? well, it is my personal belief that nothing should ever excuse a man for his personal hygiene.”

oh no, my arm, it burns. i think i’m having phantom pains again.

liam snorts and makes him get off the couch. “go take a shower, soldier.”

he makes his way to the bathroom and glances behind him before shutting the door. liam is looking at him with crinkled eyes and a grin so wide it nearly splits his face in half.

something in his chest starts beating again.

\-----

_“holy shit,” you hear vaguely through the darkness. “what the fuck were they doing to this guy?”_

_“trying to make another frankenstein, most likely,” another says, their voices getting louder. “so gruesome. look, his forearm has its own little dissection table. like those frog labs you do in middle school.”_

_maybe, if you were coherent, you would add to the conversation._ hey, i did that lab. i took the frog’s intestines home and hid it under my older sister’s pillow. _but right now, you can’t distinguish up from down, left from right, alive from dead. so you stay quiet, because you’re not sure if you’re alive right now, and your tongue feels like a dead brick in your mouth._

_“um, guys?” someone says uncertainly. “i think he’s still alive.”_

really? _you think._ could’ve fooled me.

__

\-----

every night he closes his eyes to see: a scalpel, deeply embedded in his arm; a face, smiling at him as they inject something into his veins; a dark room (or maybe it wasn’t, he couldn’t tell) and its ceiling as they scutter around him, examining him as if he was a dead frog in a science classroom.

he hears: don’t kill him, it was hard enough to get him out the wreckage alive with most of his limbs intact; god he’s so loud. do you think we can stitch his mouth shut?; no one is coming for you, corporal, it’s best you stop screaming it’s hurting my ears.

so he tells liam and his therapist that yes, the nights are getting easier, i don’t wake up thinking i’m back at that place. but just because he says it doesn’t mean it’s true.

\-----

it’s one of the bad nights. liam comes to his room and sits at the edge of his bed. “hey,” he says.

hey. his breaths are shaky. sorry for waking you up. “don't say that, you didn’t do anything wrong.” of course.

they sit in silence for a few minutes until his breathing stabilizes into a normal rate. “you good?” yeah. “okay.” liam stands, until: wait. “hm?” he stares at him in question. can you. can you stay? just until i go back to sleep. liam blinks in surprise. “oh. oh! yeah, sure.”

liam gets under the covers and makes himself comfortable, a respectable distance away from him, facing the opposite direction. “you know,” he whispers, as if he is telling a secret, “we used to do this a lot when we were kids.” really? “yeah. i was scared of the dark when i was younger, so whenever you were staying the night you’d sneak into my bed and comfort me. it was nice. you were nice. still are.”

 _you were nice._ i don’t remember. “that’s okay,” liam assures him, “you will. eventually. you’ve only been back for what, four months? look at how much you’ve improved in such a short time.”

yeah. he hesitates, and says, it’s funny. “what is?” how you were scared of the dark, when we were kids. now i am, too.

liam is silent for a moment, until he turns to face him. despite the darkness, he can make out liam’s eyes: they’re a dark brown, and never throughout the entire time they’ve lived together have those eyes held a hint of malice. “and now look,” he murmurs, “now i’m here to comfort you.”

without saying a word, liam takes the hand that is still there in his own. it’s warm. his grip is lax, but he doesn’t let go. he wakes up the next morning in the same position, curled around liam and liam curled around him as if they always sleep like this.

he remembers liam saying his favorite color is green. he was wrong, he decides, because of this: liam’s eyes and hair and entire _being_ is brown, and he would much rather drown himself in that color instead of the other.

\-----

six months after he is released from the hospital he finds a job at a bookstore manning the cash register. “you don’t need two hands to push no buttons,” the owner reasons when she gives him the job. he’s slower than how he may have been if he had all his limbs, but he manages to get by, and business isn’t fast enough for him to be a burden.

his therapist sees this as progress. “this is good, zayn,” she says. “you’re integrating yourself back into a routine. keep up the good work.”

liam thinks he’s pushing himself too much. “you sure you’re good with this? your disability benefits from the military and my paychecks is enough to get us by.”

what liam doesn’t understand is: he isn’t doing this for the money. he’s doing this because he wants to feel like he’s worth something. he hasn’t felt like that in a long time.

\-----

he comes home from his weekly therapy session to find the apartment smelling the best it has ever smelled. “your mom was just here,” liam calls out from the kitchen, “you just missed her. she left some biryani, though. you hungry?”

he inhales the smell of spices and vegetables and--

he’s sitting at the table with his family, and waliyha mumbles something in safaa’s ear that makes her laugh so hard rice shoots out of her nose. doniya pounds her back to prevent her from choking, and baba is too busy complimenting mom’s first attempt at cooking biryani to notice what is happening to his daughters. he looks at his family, thinking that he would never trade this moment for anything in the world.

he starts to cry, and does nothing but wrap his arms around liam’s waist when he comes over to ask him what’s wrong.

\-----

it’s not a lot, but it’s _there_ in his head, he _remembers_ , and that’s all that really matters.

\-----

“it’s getting colder,” liam says. they’re doing the dishes together since the dishwasher broke last week, the same day they ate the biryani. “are you still okay with walking to the bookstore and the va?” i’m good. “you sure? i know how much you don’t like the cold.”

and he does. he _hates_ the cold, never wanting to get out of the house whenever it’s snowing because the snow would always soak through his jacket and his boots. he’d go out during snow days only to appease liam, who liked them, and he remembers one time it was snowing, and liam was all bundled up with his thickest jacket and warmest scarf because it was the coldest night of the year, and he was standing under the only working street light in the block waiting for louis to pick them up, and he remembers looking at liam and feeling this erratic thudding inside of him because he was--

in love with him--

he drops the plate he was drying in the sink. it doesn’t shatter, but something else inside of him does.

 

\-----

 

he goes to sleep that night without the plaguing feelings of pain and obscurity seared underneath his eyelids. it’s the first time this has happened in a long while.

 

\-----

 

he was in love with liam, even before the operating table and the glinting light of the scalpel took away anything in him that resembled a normal human being. he was in love with him, and isn’t this the funniest thing: how, even when liam was just a stranger, even when the absence of his forearm and memories and himself was still a fresh scar in his mind, he had fallen in love with liam all over again.

 

\-----

 

louis, he says. liam looks up from his laptop. i fucking _hated_ louis.

this shuts liam up for a good minute before he bursts into laughter. “you did,” he confirms, still gasping for air. “you came to my house after school and spent the next hour complaining how your new lab partner for chemistry was so annoying and would never shut up. it was hilarious.” liam wipes a tear from his eye. “i was surprised as fuck when you brought him over a week later, acting as if you’ve been friends for ages, and hadn’t just torn him a new one a week before.”

he nods. he does that to you, louis. just...creeps up on you, without you even noticing.

“yeah,” liam agrees, his gaze fond. “that’s louis for you.” he reaches over his laptop and grabs his right bicep, right over where all the scarring is. it doesn’t even hurt anymore. “i’m proud of you, zayn.”

he grins, the type of grin that wrinkles his nose and makes his eyes squint, his tongue peeking out from behind his teeth. i’m proud of myself, too.

 

\-----

 

they’re sitting together on the couch, shoulders pressed together, watching infomercials in companionable silence when he says, i think i was in love with you, before.

he feels liam’s gaze immediately start burning the right side of his head. he doesn’t look, though, staring straight ahead at the television screen. “what?”

he shrugs. i remember. loving you, that is. i loved you.

“oh.” he hears liam shift in his seat so his body faces his. “are. are you sure?”

about what?

“about having loved me.”

_pink cheeks, soft laughter, brown eyes, a warm body next to his side, come on then, let’s go home--_

yeah. he swallows. you. yeah.

“well, how about now?”

what about now?

“do you still, um. love me. do you still love me now?”

do i. he looks at his hand, resting in his lap, and feels embarrassment creeping up his neck. uh. yeah, i do. sorry.

“why are you apologizing?”

because, well. i just am.

“okay.”

he looks at liam then because _okay?_ but liam takes this opportunity to surge forward and kiss him, framing his face with his hands. liam is slow and sweet, not holding him as if he is fragile, but as if he is too precious to break. he doesn’t reciprocate at first, but liam kisses him so desperately he doesn’t need to. liam’s lips makes him pull him closer, makes him feel the need to hold liam as close as he can, because he’s too terrified to let him go, too terrified that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be able to let go even if he wanted to.

he pulls away after a moment, liam’s hands still at the sides of his face. “i’m.” liam thumbs at the corner of his eyes, nose, lips. “you’ve always been it for me, zayn. you’ve always been my guy.” liam sighs a wet sigh and presses his forehead against his forehead. “i didn’t think i’d ever be able to tell you that, especially since what happened.”

i’m a freak, he says, confesses. i don’t think i’m the guy you knew anymore.

“here’s the thing,” liam says, rubbing circles with his thumbs over his cheekbones. “i don’t care. because i’m kind of in love with the person you’ve come to be, too.”

liam lets go of him but doesn’t move away. something in his head is pounding and a word that was foreign to him for so long wants to leave his tongue. but he’s so _scared_ , he doesn’t think he should, but the look liam is giving says, just say it. you can now, because i’m not going anywhere.

“liam,” zayn gasps, and he takes a trembling breath as liam bends his head as if in prayer and begins to cry.

 

\-----

 

zayn isn’t better yet. he still feels pain in an arm that isn’t there. he still wakes up screaming stop, i don’t know anything, just kill me already. he still has to go to his therapy sessions. he still has holes in his brain he isn’t sure will ever heal. he still has trouble remembering the faces of those who have been with him since the start. zayn isn’t better yet, but liam, with his warm hands and even warmer eyes; with his soothing voice after a nightmare; with his quiet reverence whenever he touches zayn’s skin; with his soft kisses that say _you’re here now, please don’t leave again:_ zayn isn’t better yet, but liam makes him want to be.

**  
**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things I was thinking about when I was writing this: 
> 
> One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)--the book's amazingly misogynistic and overall gross, but I liked the prose and the narration a lot. Captain America: the Winter Soldier--the inspiration I took from the movie and Bucky's character arc is appalling, I almost feel like I'm ripping it off entirely. I haven't read a lot of Captain America fanfic, but I'm pretty sure this thing I've written is like 99% of what's in that fandom. My driving permit exam--because I was supposed to be studying for it but instead I wrote this...thing.
> 
> Note: the weird indenting (or lack thereof) when it comes to Zayn "talking" to Liam as they're having conversations is intentional.
> 
> This is the part where I ask you to comment and give this story kudos. But right now, I'm pleading you: _please_ tell me what you think. I really want an outsider's opinion on whether or not this oneshot even makes sense. Please???? lol
> 
> Come to my [tumblr](http://www.giftwrappingpaper.tumblr.com) and [wattpad](http://www.wattpad.com/user/bosbie) so we can cry about Ziam together


	2. we could raise our lips to the way we were

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking back at it now, I really don’t like what I did with Liam in the original oneshot. Like. He was just there???? Yea it was Zayn-centric, but I really could have done so much more with him. Idk. So instead of rewriting the oneshot I tried fleshing him out out a little more here. I initially wasn’t going to post this, but then figured that I should because why not?? It’s much more conventional in terms of writing when compared to the first oneshot, excluding my continuous bludgeoning of the dead horse that is second person lmao. It’s actually my fav POV to write in, but even I can admit I over did it here. Lol. Whatever.
> 
> Title from the Marianas Trench song "Astoria."

you’re nearly run over the day you get the call. you don’t look before crossing the street, a good samaritan pulling you back just in time to see the large eighteen-wheeler barrel past you. all of the breath whooshes out of your lungs, leaving you breathless when the person who pulled you out the truck’s way asks if you’re alright.

“i’m okay,” you finally gasp. the woman holds your forearms and purses her lips in concern. you shake under her grip, your body invigorated by the sudden rush of adrenaline. ”thank you. wow, um. you literally saved my life right now.”

she laughs, her cheeks reddening from the praise. she’s pretty, you observe. beautiful, even. you wonder when the last time was that you’ve been held by someone this attractive. “it’s no problem, really. you sure you’re alright?” when you nod, she says, “my apartment isn’t that far from here. you wanna come over? so you can...get your bearings, i guess.”

you agree, and spend the next five hours in the good samaritan’s penthouse. she’s funny and witty, popping an expensive bottle of wine as you lounge together in front of her large flatscreen. she laughs at your jokes and drags her fingertips down your arm in a light manner so calculated that it _must_ mean something. she likes you, you know; you see it in the way she leans towards you flirtatiously, in the way she asks you to stay for another hour when you say you’d overstayed your welcome.

this is the most fun you’ve had in months. in fact, besides for work, today is the first time you’ve left you and niall’s apartment since zayn died. so.

“thanks,” you say again, one foot out the door. you smile at her, watching her bite her lip. _she’s going to ask you to stay the night,_ you think, and you’re right. she reaches out again to link her pinky with yours. she asks you to stay the night, and you consider the offer.

 _you need to move on,_ the niall inside your head says, an echo of a conversation you had during the months you couldn’t will yourself to get out of bed. _you can’t keep on waiting for him, he’s not coming back anymore._

you know niall’s right, that you can’t stay in your bed forever, waiting for someone who died thousands of miles away. so you agree and kiss her as she leads you to her bedroom. she’s warm and her moans are breathy, hot puffs caressing your flushed skin as she pulls you closer. it feels good to be on top of her, to feel her tight body against yours. the pleasure is numbing.

but she’s unfamiliar all the same, and not who you want at all. you lay beside her as the sun begins to set and feel even more empty than before.

still, you like her, and wait for her to stir before leaving. you don’t stay the night, but you get a lingering kiss and a new contact in your phone, along with a coy smirk on her lips as she makes you promise to call.

“today was really fun,” she says, “and i like you. i really do. call me? maybe we can get lunch sometime.”

and as you begin the long walk home, the good samaritan’s flattering words still sloshing in your stomach, a soft prick of hope develops. maybe this is it. maybe she’s the road to recovery.

your cell phone rings.

trisha’s hysterical, blabbering and unintelligible. it makes the glow the good samaritan left in you fizzle into nothingness, evaporating into the atmosphere. the last time trisha cried this hard was three months ago, when they were informed with true sympathy that corporeal zayn malik is missing in action, presumed dead with the rest of the people that were in the humvee when it ran over an ied.

it takes a few minutes of coaxing for her to become t more coherent. and it only takes the words _zayn_ and _alive_ for you to come to a clear understanding.

trisha and her family are a plane ride away from the apartment the official said zayn is at. “the earliest we can be there is _saturday_ ,” she cries. “i have to wait two days to see my baby.”

you’re a subway ride away from him. the thought leaves you weak. “i’ll see if he’s alright,” you promise, clutching the phone like like a lifeline. you’re getting to see him again.

before trisha hangs up, she talks of the cold medical terms the military official listed, about the amnesia and the post-traumatic stress and the seemingly crude amputation of zayn’s right forearm. this makes her cry harder and makes you all the more sick to your stomach. because this time, zayn is hurt, and you weren’t able to save him. not like you ever were able to.

you spend the next hour curled into yourself, leaning against the dirty wall of a dirty alleyway, wondering if the good samaritan didn’t actually pull you out of the ongoing traffic, if the truck had ran you over all along.

 

\-----

 

you never do call the good samaritan back.

 

\-----

 

the apartment complex is dingy and unpleasant. this isn’t at all what zayn deserves. then again, zayn deserves everything, so you aren’t quite sure what you were expecting.

you knock of the door. zayn answers it. he’s missing his right forearm and the fervor that you remember, but it’s _zayn_ that answers the door, and that’s more than anything you deserve yourself.

 

\-----

 

“Come over,” he said. You rubbed your eyes and squinted at the ceiling, adjusting the phone more comfortably against your ear.

“It’s three in the morning,” you chastised. “We have school in three hours. It’s finals week. Why the fuck are you calling me at three in the morning in finals week?”

“Come over,” he repeated. You could hear the smirk on his lips, the same one he always had when he knew he was being annoying. “I have something to show you.”

“How inviting.” You got up from under the covers and began to look for some jeans to wear. “If you’re trying to seduce me, just say so.”

He snorted, a soft breath that had you nearly bite your tongue. He refused to hang up until you promised you'd come over. It was a good thing your house was so nearby, and the place you lived in was so condensed--over the years you’d known each other, he had made it a habit to call you at the most random of times, for things ranging from a new comic book, help with homework, to even picking him up from jail (the whole thing was a misunderstanding, it turned out. Or maybe a form of racial profiling. He was one of the few brown kids that lived in the neighborhood; it turned out to be the _other_ South-Asian boy that stole the Rogers’ locally revered lawn gnome.)

It took less than half an hour for you to arrive to the Malik’s front lawn, finding him already outside, his thin legs swinging back and forth as he waited for you on the floor of his porch. When he saw you stride across the street, he greeted you with a smile. The sun hadn’t risen yet and the streetlights were dim, but you were sure that tiny quirk of his lips was enough to light up the entire neighborhood.

“Look.” He pointed to a box beside him. “I got you something. Consider it an early graduation present. And a goodbye gift, for when you leave for college.”

“You didn’t have to,” you said, which was a stupid thing to say. He communicated this with a raised eyebrow and thinned lips, making you snicker as you sat beside him and took the box. It was flimsy and light, not wrapped with anything. That didn’t mean anything, though: his presents were always the best. “Thank you. Not really sure if this was worth waking up at three in the morning for, but thank you.”

He good-naturedly elbowed you on your side. “You can’t open it yet,” he warned. “Don’t even try to before graduation. I’ll know if you do, don’t test me.” Then he smiled toothily at you again, his thigh flushed against yours, and _yes_ , you decided, _this was definitely worth waking up at three in the morning for_.

When you opened it the day after graduation, you found a frayed photo of when you were kids, huddled together on one side of the lumpy sofa your dad threw out years ago. The two of you were staring at an out-of-frame television, it seemed, with an empty bowl on both of your laps.

 _remember this?_ it read on the back in his familiar cramped scrawl. _i do. i also remember the movie we were watching. spider man 2. your mom burned the popcorn and we ate the whole bowl. my stomach started to hurt when mary jane broke peter parker’s heart and you rubbed my belly all the way to the ending scene where mary jane refused to let peter parker pick duty over love. we spent hours at your backyard pretending we were spider man and harry. or was it spider man and mary jane? haha. either way, you were always the hero. no matter how many times you deny it, you always were. haha. love you bro._

You kept that photo. You still have it now. When Zayn died, you stared at it for hours until its faded colors blurred together. You read the back until some of your tears dripped onto it, the words blending to illegibility. By then, you had it memorized by heart, yet your sentimental nature and the gaping wound he left when he exploded to bits still made you cry for the muddled black ink.

 

\-----

 

“he doesn’t know me,” waliyha says, her voice muffled by the soft fabric of your shirt. the two of you are leaning against the front door of zayn’s apartment; she said she needed to breathe, that she couldn’t breath inside the stuffy air of the bare living room. “he looked at me and--he didn’t _see_ me. he saw right past me, right at the wall. he--his _eyes_.” she sniffles, and you run a comforting hand down her long hair. it’s so much longer than the last time you saw her. she’s grown so much since the last time you saw her. “there. there's nothing _there_.”

and you hold her closer, remembering when you and zayn were eight years old, and he came to class with squared shoulders and a proud tilt to his chin, marching straight to your desk and said, “i’m a big brother now,” with a glint in his young eyes that could only be described as pride. he couldn’t pay attention the whole day, looking at nothing other than his hands and you, saying, “she’s so small, like a pea. you should see how small she is.” you’d like to think that you were the first thing zayn loved, but that would be wrong. because wali was what put that look of wonder and adoration in his face, what prompted him to say to the teacher, “i’ve decided. i want to grow up to be someone who protects people,” with the highest amount of sincerity a eight year old could have. and as you grew up together, you were sure that he kept his promise, that zayn became the exact person he decided to become the moment he first held his baby sister in his arms.

but now, zayn, with his empty eyes and his empty apartment, with his baby sister crying, her back pressed against his front door; now, you’re not quite sure.

 

\-----

 

your face hurts. he gags into the toilet. his screams are trapped in your ears, saying, taunting, _he’s not here, he can’t get out_. his back is rough, bumpy with dark, jagged lines. his stump of a right arm is just at the cusp of fully healed, and you do your best to not stare at it. you rub at a smooth area of skin on his right shoulder blade until he flinches away from the touch.

you decide: he needs me. niall sends you off with a hug and a request for you to visit sometime. you wipe the sweat off your forehead, carrying your large luggage bag the whole two hours, from your old shared apartment to the subway to him.

 

\-----

 

“thank you.” trisha’s wet sobs sound distorted from the bad reception. “i-- _thank you._ i can’t even imagine what you had to give up to stay with him at such short notice. thank you for being so selfless.”

you smile under her praise, not knowing how to tell her that you are actually the most selfish person on the planet, that you aren’t doing this for trisha or waliyha or the rest of her family; hell, not even for zayn himself. because while you do think he needs you, while you did give up a lot of things that have been constant in your adult life for years, like your job and niall: you’re doing this because you are selfish, and you saw the opportunity to be close to him again, like how you were when you were young, and you took it.

 

\-----

 

“hey, do you want anything from the grocery store?” you ask.

“no,” he says. he looks at you like you’re a stranger, if he looks at you at all. he spends most of his time in his room.

you never see him. you think he never sees you. it’s almost like you live alone.

 

\-----

 

“Later,” you said, looking down at your feet. You were heading off to university next week. Zayn was leaving for basic combat training in two hours. Neither of you knew when you would see each other again. You tried not to think of how life will be like without seeing him everyday. The thought was impossible to comprehend. “Bye, I guess.”

“Don’t be like that,” he said, trying to sound optimistic. “It won’t be that bad.”

You shrugged your shoulders, silently disagreeing with him wholeheartedly.

“We--” Zayn sighed. “Oh, come here.” He stepped forward and pulled you by the back of your head into a crushing hug. And although you were bigger than him, broader in the shoulders, having to look down to look him in the eye; at that moment, he was the most solid thing you’d ever touched. And you clung to him, willing him to stay, with you, willing him to never step away, to never leave--but he did. He always did.

 

\-----

 

he asks you what he was like before. and what _was_ he like before? it seems like ages ago, the time when you could drape an arm around his shoulders and call him your best friend. which zayn does he want to know? the one who spent entire nights with you holding a flashlight so you could see the pages of the comic book better, giggling and shushing whenever one of you thought your parents were awakened by your laughter? or the one with the haunted, gaunt face he wore the day he came home from his first military tour? you never thought you would have to describe zayn in a couple of sentences to zayn himself. you never thought you would be able to, because zayn is so much more than what words can express.

you don’t think the long-winded answer you give does him any justice. he looks at you weirdly, as if you had said something strange. had you? looking back at it, you cringe and smother your head into the couch cushion. you sounded like a lovesick teenager. how embarrassing.

after that, he avoids the topic of his past entirely.

 

\-----

 

“you have to eat,” you say, plead. “it’s _soup_ , z, c’mon.”

“i’m not hungry,” he says, adamant. “i don’t want anything.”

that night, he throws up stomach acid into the sink. it’s green and smells disgusting. he doesn’t miss another meal after that.

 

\-----

 

“oh,” you say, watching in fascination as zayn eats an orange. “huh.”

“what,” he says, peeling the fruit with blunt fingertips.

“sorry,” you laugh awkwardly. “it’s just. you never really liked oranges before, ever since we were kids. i remember, for your 17th birthday, louis got you a whole bushel of oranges as a joke. you donated all of it to the local food bank without eating any of it, haha.”

zayn doesn’t look away from the orange on his lap, and you see his brow furrow. he digs into it harder, making spurts of juice squirt on his shirt and hands. he says haughtily, “well, _i_ like oranges.”

he almost sounds like a child trying to prove something. you shrink back as if you are being scolded. “okay,” you say. okay.

 

\-----

 

“So,” Zayn said, watching you as take a sip of your Coke. “Catch me up. What happened while I was gone?”

You leaned back against the hard material of the booth’s cushions. It’s been years since you’ve last eaten here, you mused, watching the usual bustle of your old childhood haunt. Today was a special occasion: not only was it your 22nd birthday celebration (three weeks in advance, since you’d be back at college for the actual date), it was also Zayn’s first day of leave since coming back from his first tour. Your friends and family were waiting at your parent’s home for you, but you specifically set those 45 minutes away for him. You hadn’t seen each other in nearly eighteen months. It was a blessing to see his face again, to feel the familiar warmth of his skin by your side.

“Not much,” you answered. “Still in college. Drowning in student loans. Broke up with my girlfriend. Missed you.”

“Huh.” He narrowed his eyes. “You,” he pointed his fork at you accusingly, “never mentioned a girlfriend.”

“I tell you my life story and confessed my undying love for you, and all you got out of that was that I had a girlfriend?”

He pinched the skin of your elbow, making you let out a faux yelp of pain. “Who do you think I am? Of course I’m going to focus on your love life. Best friends were designed to be nosey about their best friend’s love lives.”

You shook your head in fond exasperation. “It wasn’t that serious. Like, she was nice? And into me. So I thought, why not? So we dated for a couple of months, tested the waters a bit. I liked her but. I didn’t _like_ her.”

“I _didn’t_ know,” he corrected, “because you didn’t _tell_ me. Also, you always say Danielle wasn’t a serious relationship, too. You dated _her_ for a year.”

“Um. I don’t know? Yeah, I dated Dani for a bit, and it was great, but. I wasn’t in _love_ with her.”

“So what do you deem as a serious relationship, then?”

What _did_ you deem as a serious relationship? To be frank, you never really thought about it. Maybe it was because you never thought you would ever have one with Zayn around, being his perfect, unobtainable self. “Just. Not like the one I didn’t tell you about.”

“Still.” He accentuated his words with violent gestures with his spoon. You would’ve laughed if Zayn hadn’t been glaring at you with all the hate in the world. “My best friend has a relationship, his _first_ relationship since high school, and he doesn’t even tell me? I pronounce that as bullshit. Whatever. It’s not like I’m risking my life to protect this country or anything, so I _obviously_ don’t deserve to know who, what, when, and where you’re dating. Don’t mind me.”

“I can smell your sarcasm a mile away. It reminds me suspiciously of moldy cheese,” you laughed, stealing a fry from his plate. This was familiar: you and him, together. And despite the faraway look Zayn got from time to time, the way he jumped at a sharp, unexpected sounds, the minute differences you noticed in him that weren’t there before. Despite all this, this was Zayn, and you missed Zayn, and you loved Zayn, and at that moment, being in his presence was all that you could have ever thought of wanting.

 

\-----

 

nearly every night you wake up to his wailing and crying. they’re loud and sound as if he’s screaming right in your ear, despite him being in another room. every night zayn’s screams shove their hands down your throat and pull out your organs and your bones, one by one, until you’re nothing but a bag of flesh, a shell, just like he is.

by the twentieth night you get tired of him slamming the door on your face, saying, “please leave me alone, i’m fine, thank you.” you stop trying to comfort him from whatever demons he fights with in the dark.

 

\-----

 

 _where are you?_ you think desperately as you stare at his sharp profile, silently willing for him see you, to look at you instead of the wall he’s been facing for the past half hour. _where are you?_

 

\-----

 

his family comes to visit again. from what you've gathered from wisps of conversations overheard during the taxi drive from the airport, they're contemplating the idea of moving closer, of uprooting their life for an apartment they'd found for a great price that's about a half hour from you. trisha seems reluctant, but you can tell from the falter at the ends of her sentences that she will eventually cave in to the plan. you don't want to intrude in a matter as personal as this, but you want them to come. you'd like the extra support, the extra hands to help with the job you've willingly burdened yourself with.

(because that's what this is, isn't it? a burden. zayn is a burden.)

it’s been nearly two months. nothing has changed.

“we’ll get there,” yaser says to you as he watches zayn tolerate his mother’s and waliyha’s doting affection, ignore doniya’s arm pressed against the one that is still there, pretend to not notice safaa’s darting gaze dance across the mutilated stump that mars where his right elbow ends. maybe yaser’d noticed your defeated slouch, or the tired slope of your lip. maybe he noticed how you don't look at zayn how you used to anymore. he doesn't bring it up. Intead, he clasps your shoulder and pulls you closer as they begin to shake.

 

\-----

 

your shift at mcdonald’s ends at five. niall meets up with you at a bar for an hour; it’s the first time in months you’ve seen each other in person. you can’t stay for long, though. zayn waits for you at the apartment, like a baby waiting to be fed.

niall hasn’t said a word since you’ve arrived, letting you vent out your pent up frustrations. you drink and you smoke and you talk, not waiting for a reply, only needing a willing ear to talk to.

“i didn’t,” you start, before taking a long swig of your drink. you can’t recall what it is, only knowing that it has alcohol. “i didn’t sign up to be his--his _babysitter_ , nialler. _i_ work, _i_ pay the bills, _i_ buy the food, _i_ wake up every damn night to his screeching to only have him ignore my very existence except when he needs me. like? i knew he wasn’t going to be all fucking, i don’t know, _chipper_ or anything, especially after what happened to him. but when i moved in with him, i didn’t expect to move in with a stranger. he doesn’t _know_ me. he looks at me and sees a guy, not _me_. i miss zayn, niall. i miss him, because the guy i live with? that’s not him.”

there’s a lull in your rant, where you light your cigarette and niall looks down contemplatively at his drink. the bar is loud and rowdy, a wall of white noise that you didn’t realize you craved until now.

“now that i think about it,” he says thoughtfully, “i’ve never met the guy. don’t know how, considering how long i’ve known you.”

“huh.” you place your drink on the water-marked table. the table’s rickety and unstable, wobbling from the extra weight. “i guess i’ve never introduced you. kind of shitty on my part.”

“nah. i never brought it up, either. but. i feel like i know him. really well, actually. because he’s all you talk about. i even know his favorite brand of cereal? i don’t even know my _girlfriend’s_ favorite brand of cereal.” you chuckle at that, and niall smiles at what is the first sign of emotion you’ve shown that day besides irritation and spite. “hey, do you remember the first conversation we had?”

you contemplate for a minute, taking a long drag of your cigarette until you say, “i answered your craigslist ad for a roommate, and i remember we talked about music. don't know what, though.”

niall nods. “we did. you couldn’t shut up about this one artist a ‘zayn’ had introduced to you. i remember how my first impression of you was, ‘this guy’s dating someone who has good taste in music.’ i really thought he was your boyfriend until you brought up otherwise.”

you blink. “oh. that’s. wow. was i that obvious?”

“yes.”

“yikes.”

“yeah, yikes.” the server interrupts with your food. the meals are shiny and smell like grease, and you moan in pleasure as you take a bite into the over-priced, over cooked burger. niall continues, “it’s so obvious that you love him, mate. like, it’s nearly embarrassing. so that’s why i’m so surprised how easy it was for you to give up.”

this makes you stop mid-chew. “give up?” you ask, placing your burger down.

“yeah.” he places his finger on the rim of his glass and follows the curve, making a ringing noise. “you gave up. that’s why you’re so mad at everything. at your current circumstance, at him.” you open your mouth to argue, but he carries on, saying, “if you ask me, you should be mad at yourself. because it only took one bad situation for you to say, ‘this isn’t what i signed up for,’ and _give up_ on the person you once told me you’d take a bullet for. well, guess what? he took a lot more than a bullet for a country that couldn’t give less of a shit for him, and all he gets is an untreated mental disorder and a friend that considers him a hinderance rather than a gift.”

you don’t know what to say. he casually cracks his neck and signals the bartender with a practiced hand motion. “but i dunno,” he says, “that’s just me.”

 

\-----

 

you walk back. zayn opens the door when you knock, because you forgot your key, and welcomes you home with a soft, “hello.”

zayn welcomes you home. zayn welcomes you home, and you made everything about yourself. somewhere along the way you forgot that you weren’t the one who had been taken away, who had been cut open and had all your insides and humanity clawed out, replaced with sand and dirt. _i’m sorry._ “ have you ever thought about seeking some help?” _i’m sorry._

he agrees with a hesitancy so human it pulls you back into reality. this is zayn, and you are selfish. it makes you want to cry. you almost touch him, but you don’t deserve to. you promise that you will do better.

 

\-----

 

“you’re not broken, though,” you tell him when he says he wants to be fixed. this is something you’ve only recently realized. niall was right: you _did_ give up. you will not make the same mistake again.

 

\-----

 

you think it helps, little by little. the changes aren’t very apparent; you first notice it two months into therapy, when he laughs at one of your shitty jokes after eating a seafood dinner (“have fun at therapy! make sure you don’t...pull a _mussel_ , haha”). the faint huff makes you choke on your california roll.

he lets you into his room now, even during the bad nights where it’s like he forgets he’s safe now. you still don’t touch him, but you sit at the corner of the bed until his shallow breathing subsides and he realizes where he is. you wait until he’s asleep again, watching him breathe, up and down, up and down, like a metronome.

the best thing, however, is: he _looks_ at you. he looks at you, and although you are still a stranger in his eyes, no longer the boy who has known him for longer than the world has been turning, zayn looks at you, after all these months of you wishing for him to do just that.

 

\-----

 

he takes a liking to one of those reality shows that airs every weekday night. you were never a big fan of them, finding the genre too flashy and staged for your taste. he never liked them, either. he abhorred them, actually, telling everyone who was willing to listen that reality television is what is tearing america apart. now, he eagerly sits on the couch for an hour, watching in amusement the daily lives of a group of people you still can’t put a name to.

you fix your schedule so that every night you can watch with him, too. while you still don’t understand the appeal nor what is happening on the screen, the domestic feeling of his presence by your side that one hour every weeknight is more than enough to make up for it. this reminds you of what you were like when you were young.

but that is not important. this is the present, and zayn is different, but he is here.

 

\-----

 

you do some research. it’s not much, but it’s something.

 

\-----

 

“i was expecting the worst, but this is. he’s,” louis says, watching you as you scrub the dirty plates under lukewarm water (without helping, the bastard). three hours before, zayn shook his hand and introduced himself, polite but impersonal, civil but distant. “he’s so _different_.”

“is that supposed to be a bad thing?” you put a plate in the drying rack. it’s zayn’s favorite plate, the blue one with a floral design circling the lip. it came with the apartment and has a chip on the rim. “so he’s different. it’s still him. this isn’t supposed to be a--a job, louis. he’s our friend. believe me, it took a while for me to figure that out.”

 

\-----

 

“I made a friend today,” you told your mom, sliding your backpack down your shoulders and toeing off your shoes. “His name is Zayn. He’s new.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow and bent down so you could kiss her cheek. “That’s nice.”

You nodded as you followed her to the kitchen for your after-school snack. “He’s nice. We talked about how smelly Mrs. Ng is and comic books. He says he’ll let me borrow his favorite ones, but he couldn’t today because he didn't bring them to school. I like him.”

“Well, if you like him, I like him, too.” She smiled dotingly and ruffled your hair. “Invite him over sometime. I’d like to meet him.”

So you did. You anxiously watched him blink up at her with his big brown eyes. You didn’t know why you were so nervous. Maybe it was because you’d never invited a friend over before.

“Hello,” your mom said, reaching down to shake his hand as if she was meeting a grown up. “And who are you?”

“I’m Zayn,” he said. You knew your mom already knew his name, but she didn’t say anything about it. You didn’t say anything, too, because it made you feel like you were in on a secret. Only adults had secrets, and this made you feel mature, like an adult. “I’m new. Your son said I can come over to his house and he’ll show me his room and his toys and his comics.”

“So I’ve heard. Well, go on, then. Don’t lose track of time, okay? Wouldn’t want to worry your parents.”

He stayed over for dinner. Your mother had cooked quesadillas, but quickly made some mac and cheese for Zayn when he said he didn’t eat pork. She never did that for you before, even if you asked. You were jealous for a bit, until Zayn shared some with you when your mother wasn’t looking with a mischievous smile and quick hands.

“So how did you two become friends?” your mother asked, leaning forward to wipe some sauce from the corner of your mouth. You scowled and swatted her hand away, feeling like a child again. You were _seven_ , not a _baby_.

“We’re in the same class,” Zayn answered. He’s bouncing in his seat, unable to sit still. “We had to pair up for a game, and I didn’t know anybody, and he didn’t have a partner either, so I asked if he wanted to be my partner, and he said yes.”

“That’s sweet of you,” she said, not bothered by Zayn’s inability to end and begin new sentences. “Thank you looking out for him.”

“Mom,” you hissed, embarrassed again.

“It’s no problem, ma’am” he said, the bravado of an eight year old emitting in waves from his raised chin, his puffed out chest. “I’m glad I did. He’s my _best_ friend.”

You blushed at that, from both abashment and pride. It was a bold statement, considering you’ve only known each other for a couple of days, but it was. It was nice. You never had a best friend before. By the time you began looking for one, everyone in your class had a best friend already, so you could never find that one person you could call your _best_ friend. You were happy it was Zayn, though. You only knew each other for a couple of days, but even by then, you couldn’t think of any person that could be your best friend except Zayn.

“You’re my best friend, too,” you told him bashfully. He beamed so brightly his eyes and his nose wrinkled, and you smiled back. You didn’t notice your mother looking at you two, relieved at the possibility that she finally found someone besides your father and herself who could possibly love you just as much as she did.

 

\-----

 

his family moves into a compact yet quaint house about an hour’s drive away from you. you celebrate by coming over with zayn and a coupon book for mcdonald’s. it isn’t much, but trisha laughs when you hand it to her, thanking you and zayn for the housewarming gift. you don’t stay long, but you make pleasant conversation with them over dinner. they express happiness when zayn talks about his new job at the bookstore, and even his musings over that stupid reality tv show. you watch the scene with pride, glad for the display of zayn’s improvement.

a month later, they return. only now, zayn has tears in his eyes, and he chokes out “ _mom, baba_ ” before lunging for them, hiding his face on the crook of yaser’s neck. when they realize what this means, they all sink to the floor, together, a quivering mess.

it’s a beautiful sight. you go to wali and safaa’s room to tell them the good news.

 

\-----

 

you now spend the night in zayn’s bed more often than not. it makes you feel sort of guilty, using his nightmares as an excuse to lay with him the way you’ve dreamed of for years.

he doesn’t ask you to stop, though. and you don’t stop when you notice how he doesn’t wake up screaming as much anymore, how he calms down, how he stops shaking sometimes when you are with him, when you rest a careful touch on his shoulder. you don’t know what this means, but you don’t question it. the silent nights and zayn’s grateful sighs are enough.

 

\-----

 

“i’m heading out,” you hear from the doorway. “i took an early shift today, for the dinner.”

“just don’t be late, okay? i haven’t seen harry since he left for europe,” you remind him, taking the cereal out of the top cabinet. the milk is probably expired, but you don’t want to take the time to make anything else. the sound of zayn putting on his shoes blend with the background noise of the city coming through the open window. he’s taken to wearing slip-ons, something he's never done before. he does so for convenience, since tying laces is difficult to do with one hand. “and i’m pretty sure louis is coming, too. hm. maybe I should invite niall, i'm sure he'd come despite the short notice. and if he's coming, then he's obviously going to bring his girlfriend. oh, and then--” you stop when you notice how rude you're being. “fuck. sorry. I didn't even ask. are you alright with me inviting more people?”

after a moment, you hear a “that's cool.” then, “what is harry like again?”

“you met him through louis,” you tell him. after pouring the cereal into a clean bowl you check the fridge from the milk and yes, it expired three days ago. it smells awful. guess you’ll have to eat the cereal dry. “you bonded over music, even though your taste in music are completely different. i think you were the one who encouraged harry to ask louis out.”

“oh, that’s nice of me,” he mumbles quietly to himself. you hear the door squeak open. “does he know about…”

“yeah,” you answer, not needing to hear the rest to know what he means. “we had a long facetime session around the time you came back. harry’s one of your best friends, you know? he feels horrible that it’s been this long and only now he’s able to visit. he’s understanding."

“i didn’t know that,” he says, his voice small and guilty.

“that’s okay,” you reassure him through the plaster of the walls separating you from him. Your hands dig into the silverware cabinet for a spoon. you say okay a lot to him, you’ve noticed. you’re not sure why.

“is it?” he says, still unsure.

“we’ll get there,” is what you say, parroting back yaser’s words from what seems like so long ago, and you hear zayn huff and say, “what a cornball,” as he walks out of the apartment, closing the door and locking it as he goes.

the apartment is empty, and you feel lighter, thinking of what was nearly a laugh that came out of zayn’s mouth. he almost sounded like how he was before.

 

\-----

 

“i need to leave,” he whispers into your ear. when harry looks up from his conversation with niall and at you two in concern, you smile reassuringly as you escort zayn to his room after you excuse yourself. “i-- _god_ ,” he says, embarrassed. he sinks to the corner of his bed. “fuck.”his shoulders heave for oxygen and his breaths are shaky. you hand him water you poured before leaving me the table, and he holds it with a trembling grip for a minute before downing it in two gulps and gives you back the cup.

“don’t be so hard on yourself,” you say after waiting a bit for his breathing to calm down, raising your hands in surrender when zayn glares at you. “okay, i shouldn’t have said that. but--”

“i thought i was getting better,” he hisses. his hands are clenched into tight fists in his thighs, his veins popping out from his tan skin. “but i’m. i’m _pathetic_. i can't even have dinner with a friend without freaking out.”

you lean against the door frame, wanting to give him space. he doesn't like it when you touch him when he's like this--he doesn't like it when you touch him at all, really. it's been getting better, though. you tell him that, how you admire him for getting up every morning and going to work, interacting with strangers behind a cash register when just ten months ago he couldn’t go outside without breaking down at the scene of a crowd.

“better?” he scoffs, rubbing his eyes with his arm. “i ran out of there like a coward. it's been nearly a year and the moment i re-meet a friend i can't spend an hour with him and his fucking boyfriend and your friend and his fucking girlfriend. you say i know them but i can’t remember anything beyond this past year. my head--” he presses against his temple with his knuckles, “fuck, it’s less useful than my right hand. because it’s not _there_.”

you leave the room an hour later, waiting until he’s asleep to return. “he’s tired,” you explain to your guests apologetically. everyone is understanding and kind. when they leave they send their gratitude to them, and niall slaps you on the back and says, “see you later, bro. you’re doing good.”

“what about him?” you ask.

niall shrugs. “fuck, i’m no doctor. but from what i’ve seen of him, this is miles better than what you told me before. also, thanks for finally introducing us. i was starting to wonder if he actually exists, or if he was someone you made up for shits and giggles.”

harry is the last to leave, louis fetching their car from the parking lot across the street. “i’d apologize for not visiting sooner, but knowing you, that’d do more harm than good.” you nod in agreement, and he says, “hey, is there anything i can do? to help. i don’t know at how how to act in situations like this, but i don’t want to make him uncomfortable or anything. wait, did anything i do make him uncomfortable? is that why he left? shit, this is more complicated than i thought.”

“you didn’t do anything wrong,” you tell him. “he just gets like that sometimes. we just have to wait it out, give him some space.” you lower your voice. “if i could give just one piece of advice, just. don’t treat him like an, an invalid, yeah? he’s not, like, fragile or anything.”

“hm.” harry eyes you for a moment before taking a step closer to the open door. “he’s been through a lot of shit, huh?”

you smile and hug him goodbye. “he’s the bravest person i know.”

 

\-----

 

“is your show not on tonight?” you ask him. it’s already ten minutes after the time it usually begins to air, but the tv is still off and zayn is still in his room. he flinches at your voice, and you worriedly fiddle with his room’s door handle. “sorry. i didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“you didn’t,” he insists, still not looking at you. “i’m tired. i think i’m just gonna call it a day.”

this is the first time he missed the show since he discovered it months ago. thinking about it now, he’s been acting weirder than usual this past week. “hey, is everything good?” you inquire. “i didn’t do anything to upset you or anything, right?”

he spins around and denies this vehemently. “no--you--i’m just. tired. yeah. you worry too much.”

“sorry,” you say, because that is the only thing you can say.

“stop--” he exhales in exasperation. “stop _apologizing_. you’ve never done anything wrong, even in those times i made you think you did. you’re always there, even when i don’t want you to be, but then i eventually realize that ‘oh, i really needed you at that moment.’ but all i hear from you is _sorry, sorry,_ because you don’t realize that you’re _you_ and you’ve never done anything wrong because you’re _you_ and--”

he stops when he registers that he’s rambling. pink creeps up his neck as he mumbles a “just stop apologizing” and retires for the night.

even though you still don’t understand what’s going on, you watch the show alone, wondering what brought about zayn’s outburst.

 

\-----

 

“i think i was in love with you, before,” he says, eyes locked to the tv screen in front of him, confessing this as if it’s something to be ashamed of.

you kiss him. he doesn’t turn away.

“ _liam_.”

and just like that, everything makes sense.

 

\-----

 

Your memory is not perfect, but nothing could help you remember the first time you realized you were in love. At least, that is what you said to those who asked. Because whether you liked it or not, you were never good at hiding how you look at Zayn (except from Zayn himself, of course, that oblivious bastard) with “an intensity that is more suitable in an unrealistic rom-com than in this dump of a town,” according to Louis. You lived in a small and nosey neighborhood where everyone loved knowing everyone’s business, which is not a good thing for something like you, who would much rather it be that the soccer mom two houses down _didn’t_ know about your, frankly, embarrassingly evident pining.

But.

Your memory is not perfect, but it floods through you just the same, and a locked memory likes to emerge from time to time. It’s one you like to keep to yourself, so you let people believe your lies of foggy memory and have this one thing for your own.

The chilly night and the warmth of your family, huddled on the living couch under the thickest blanket you owned. The domestic warmth your parent’s body’s emitted to your shivering frame. Knowing that your parents made this moment just for you; that just an hour before, you eavesdropped on their conversation through the door of the master bedroom, of them fretting over the broken heater and how they would be able to pay for the repairs _and_ the mortgage this month. They didn’t want you to work; they wanted you to focus on your studies. Junior year is the most important year of high school, after all.

The sudden, inexplicable knowledge that one day, you will grow up and face the same problems your parents face, and, and--Zayn, Zayn was there (he was always there), magically appearing at your doorstep with a charming grin, bidding his greetings to your parents until, “Can I steal him for a bit? I got an extra buck and a late night craving for a milkshake.”

Your parents letting you go, despite the late hour, because they trust Zayn as much as they trust each other. The constant stream of conversation between the two of you, thankfully keeping you mind off of your heater, your thin jacket, and your bills. The chilly milkshake, the chilly night, and Zayn’s scorching arm wrapped around your shoulder as you walked on the sidewalk to the park as if you two owned the whole neighborhood. And, with the constant weight of Zayn by your side; the feeling of that being the case.

The creak of the swing’s rusty chains as you pushed yourselves off the ground. The wetness of your hands from the condensation of the milkshake making the chains slippery under your grip. Zayn on the swing next to you, his feet scraping on the playground’s rubbery turf.

And in the lull of your conversation, the moon peeking from the edge of a cloud. Silver falling on Zayn’s face. You had seen that face your whole life, could recognize it in a crowd larger than your neighborhood’s population, had watched it grow and age, alongside yours. But under moonlight and shadow, you remember the breathlessness you suddenly felt, the twist in your stomach, and the realization: “oh, he’s beautiful.”

Your memory is not perfect, but nothing could make you forget the first time you realized you were in love.

 

\-----

 

but, you find out, something could make zayn forget.

 

\-----

 

“i think i was in love with you, before.”

 

\-----

 

you also find out that zayn can learn how to remember again, too.

 

\-----

 

“i don’t want you to regret this,” zayn says, his breath fanning your collarbone. you run a hand down his arm and kiss his temple (because you can _do_ that now. the thought leaves you reeling).

“regret what?” you ask. you feel zayn toy with a loose thread at the hem of your shirt.

“this.” he lifts his head from the curve of your neck, and you playfully knock your nose against his. “me, i guess.”

“now why would i do that,” you murmur, and you savor the grateful look zayn shoots your way.

 

\-----

 

“took ya long enough,” niall mumbles good naturedly when he notices how you kissed zayn goodbye when he left for his therapy session. “god, i haven’t even known you two as long as lou and harry have, but _whew_ , that took a while.”

“shut up,” you laugh. “you travelled all this way to criticize my life choices? i get enough of that from my parents.”

niall eats a spoonful of cereal instead of replying. he hadn’t asked to open the new bottle of cereal, nor had he asked if it was okay to raid the fridge. it’s as if he’s already settling himself in. bastard.

“but in all seriousness,” he backtracks. his face is proud and glowing. “i’m happy for you, bro. he looks really happy.”

you bite your lip and glance at your hands. “thanks.”

 

\-----

 

“breathe,” you say, watching him close his eyes tight, his hand clenched into a fist.

“fuck, it hurts,” he hisses through his teeth, and you reach over to massage the area a couple of inches above where his elbow ends and where his right forearm would be. “it hasn’t been this bad since i came home.”

“shh,” you say, and you stay like that, hunched around him like a wall with something to protect, until his phantom pains subside.

 

\-----

 

“is this right?” he asks wali, pointing to a line in his journal. it’s something he’s recently been doing; writing down thoughts and memories he has during the day, and inquiring about their authenticity to whomever it pertains to. the rest of his family surround the two, watching in amusement. “when you were twelve you had your first date, and i followed you the entire day. from a respectable distance, of course.”

she giggles her affirmation and adds, “you were trying _so_ hard to be discreet, but i caught you the moment you stepped inside and harry started yelling at you from across the restaurant. you’re not as good at stalking as you think.”

zayn defends himself by saying, “who even goes on a date at twelve? i couldn’t leave you alone with a boy without supervision, especially when you were _twelve_.”

the entire room laughs at that, and you link your pinky with his. his answering smile is blinding.

 

\-----

 

 _we got there,_ you think, and judging by how zayn is looking at you, he is thinking the same thing.

 

\-----

 

“you make me want to become better again,” he tells you in the dark. you smile and bite his lower lip, making him snort and bat your head away.

“good,” you say, pleased, pulling him closer. “you make me want to become better, too.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the weird indenting (or lack thereof) when it comes to Zayn "talking" to Liam as they're having conversations is intentional.


End file.
